


Spark Plug

by GhostCwtch



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Damaged Bucky Barnes, Gen, Traumatic Brain Injury, bucky pov, semi stream of conciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5275334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostCwtch/pseuds/GhostCwtch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky gets out of the hospital after being recovered from HYDRA and is adjusting to his new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spark Plug

Every time he bites into a stick of celery, he can smell the hospital room in the bowels of the Avengers Tower. He can remember the disinfectant and the same questions for a solid week. He's been told about the weeks of waiting, Steve sick with worry and doctors trying to prepare him for the worst, the rest of the team trying to be supportive while planning containment procedures and how to take out the only other semi-successful super soldier. 

 

He remembers the worry when he first got out of the hospital and everyone was on the razor of terror that he was going to be triggered or tripped up by some latent conditioning they hadn’t caught. That some how he would transform back into the empty weapon with no opinions on jazz music and baseball. He remembers his own worry that he wouldn't, couldn't, make Steve happy. That he'd be angry all the time, that he wouldn't be able to control that anger. That he’d be back in that room, alone with the people asking the questions again.

_(and again and again and again)_

 

He worries about the things he can't remember. He feels like his mind is an old over coat and the pockets have holes eaten by the moths of repeated electrical trauma, and the loose change of memory falls out from time to time. He doesn't remember the first time he met Tony Stark, but he knows now that he killed Howard and Maria. He doesn't remember basic tasks, has to be shown how to shower and shave, but he could escape from the tower in 87 different ways if he wanted to. 

 

_He doesn’t want to._

 

The new things are foggy at times. He tries to hold on to things like -

 

_Steve smiling at him when he gets out of the hospital_

 

_baseball games on TV_

_Steve laughing when Clint manages to lose his pizza to the dog_

 

 _slow Sunday afternoons._  

 

_Steve, Steve, always Steve_

 

 

Some things still get lost.

 

He feels like his mind is an old overcoat and the pockets-- He does like cabbage now which is new and different after what he's been assured was a life long hate.

 

He sometimes wonders how things would be if he hadn't fallen. Growing old through the 40s and 50s and 60s, living his time one year at a time and with each of those years spent awake and in order. Imagines being old like Peggy and Steve still being young and strong and so beautiful that looking at him burns through Bucky like he’s been staring at the sun. 

 

Sometimes he is glad that he has made it here, as damaged as he is, and that Steve is here with him and they are together in _the future, the future Steve!_

 

_"Where're we headed, Buck?"_

_"The future."_

 

He thinks about these things when they come and ask him more questions about people whose name he can't remember, the names of people he knows he should know but doesn’t. But Steve is here as well, is always here now when they ask him the questions, so he's reassured. He wishes that they could sit a little closer together though. Because sometimes, his mind can be like an old overcoat.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have no personal (or even anecdotal) experience of traumatic brain injury. I have watched a few documentaries and done some minimal research but this could be a very inaccurate depiction of the thought process for someone who has suffered a TBI.


End file.
